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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap....^!*^!' Cop3Tiglit No. 

SheltMil:7t 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



A Good Start 



/ 



BY 



F. B. MEYER, M.A. 

AUTHOR OF "christian LIVING," " THE SHEPHERD 
PSALM," ETC. 



f;oV 



f ^" 



New York: 46 East Fourteenth Street 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY 

Boston : too Purchase Street 



d 






Copyright, 1897, 
By Thomas Y. Crowell & Company. 



The Library 

OF CONHRESS 
WASHINGTON 



TYPOGRAPHY BY C. J. PETERS & SON, 
BOSTON. 



PREFACE. 



The chapters in this little book might 
be called " Work-a-day Sermons." They 
are intended to bring the highest prin- 
ciples of our holy religion to bear on 
the practical business of every-day life. 

Probably all our sermons should have 
more of this element in them. The 
Epistles of the New Testament are ad- 
mirable specimens of the blending of 
the doctrinal and practical. We are 
shown how to apply the loftiest princi- 
ples to the solution of every-day prob- 
lems. People are not apt to do this for 
themselves, and like to be shown how 



IV PREFACE. 

to eat and drink, and do all they have 
to do, in the name of the Lord Jesus, 
and to the glory of God. This is what 
these chapters aim to do. They are a 
piece of undressed cloth — homespun. 

One of our greatest modern teachers 
tells us " to hitch our wagon to a starP 
And the great purpose of this book will 
have been amply realized if the readers 
shall learn the art of linking the sim- 
plest actions of life with those eternal 
truths that burn evermore, as constella- 
tions in the firmament. 

F. B. MEYER. 
August J 1897. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. A Good Start 3 

II. Tempers, And what to do with 

Them 15 

III. Exaggeration 27 

IV. On Falling in Love 41 

V. On Being Straight 57 

VI. On Doing a Good Day's Work . 71 

VII. Savorless Salt 85 

VIII. , Our Holidays 99 

IX. How TO Spend Sunday iii 

X. Amusements 127 

XI. The Use of the Senses .... 141 

XII. Christmas 153 



A GOOD START. 



I. 



A GOOD START. 

A New Year is opening before us, 
and there is some satisfaction in feeling 
that an opportunity will be afforded of 
making a really new start. Each true 
heart in which there is a spark of the 
Divine life turns eagerly towards the un- 
blemished page, the untrodden way, of 
the New Year, not with wonder simply, 
or with hope, but with fervent resolve 
that the dead past shall bury its dead, 
and that a nobler, fuller, sweeter spirit 
shall glisten in the chalice of existence. 
Years ago, in Leicester, I was accus- 



4 A GOOD START. 

tomed to go into the great workshops 
and factories with my pledge-cards on 
the first day of the New Year, because 
it was comparatively easy to induce men 
to make a new start with the New Year. 
It was in the air. 

But it is of little purpose merely to 
wish and resolve ; let us see whether 
there should not be a definite dealing 
with mistakes and sins which have lain 
at the root of the withered gourds that 
represent the years of the past. If once 
we could make a new departure in re- 
spect to these, there would be some 
reason for counting on a permanent bet- 
terment for all coming time. 

Debt is a fruitful source of misery and 
failure. You may owe more than you 
may care to tell your dearest friend ; you 
dare not pass along certain thorough- 



A GOOD START. 5 

fares for fear of encountering individuals 
whom you have put off with repeated 
promises that you have not Icept ; and 
you hardly dare to open your letters in 
the morning lest they should contain 
some stinging remonstrance or threat. 
Your weekl}^ or monthly wages are 
pledged before you receive them, and 
are gone like a flake of snow on the 
river. All this is very miserable, and 
must be dealt with. Do not, however, 
lose heart. Worse troubles than this 
have been overcome by faith, resolution, 
and an earnest, sincere purpose. 

Take my advice. First, kneel down 
and confess the sin and mistake of the 
past to God, and ask his help. Next, 
put down a list of your entire indebted- 
ness, and make a confidant of wife, or 
husband, or parent, or friend, not neces- 



6 A GOOD START. 

sarily to gaia their pecuniary assistance, 
but that you may have their sympathy 
and fellowship. Further, look around 
your life to see if there is any means of 
reducing present expenses, or of selling 
articles of superfluity and luxury in order 
to reduce your indebtedness. Lastly, 
make a solemn resolution not to incur a 
single sixpence of needless expense till 
every penny you owe is paid. Let this 
be your new start, and henceforth let it 
be your rule, to make no purchase and 
incur no liability which is not easily 
within your means. 

Evil and expensive habits drain away 
the strength of our lives and becloud 
the inner horizon. Is it not with the 
individual as with the state ? Suppos- 
ing it were possible to stay the extrava- 
gant expenditure of our people in Drink, 



A GOOD START. 7 

Tobacco, and Horse-racing, would not 
squalor, want, and misery, and all their 
gaunt tribes, which have settled down on 
our vast populations as a horde of Kurds, 
fold up their tents, and begone ? And, 
on a small scale, are not similar evils re- 
peating similar ravages on isolated souls, 
perhaps on yours ? Would it not be an 
immense gain in every way, if you were 
to give up your Drink and Tobacco, and 
employ the money and time which these 
consume in procuring books, pursuing 
some hobby, planning for a good sum- 
mer vacation, or engaging in wholesome 
and health-giving recreations ? 

In our schooldays, when running in 
matches, we used to begin fairly well 
clothed ; but as we ran, and found our- 
selves slowly losing ground, we tore off 
one article after another in our anxiety 



o A GOOD START. 

to reach the goal ; and the course was 
littered with ties, collars, and other arti- 
cles. Similarly, in the great race of life, 
the flight of the years should be marked 
by the weights and sins that we have 
laid aside. Each new year would be en- 
riched by the needless extravagances we 
had learned to forego. We should run 
lighter, breast the stormy waves with less 
encumbrance, and stand a better chance 
of getting beyond the rabble that clamor 
at the mountain-foot, to stand among 
the rarer spirits on the higher ranges. 
May I not prevail on you to make some 
such sacrifice with the opening of the 
New Year ? It would be a new start 
indeed ! 

Bad companions have made havoc with 
the past. Women who are perpetually 
dropping in to gossip ; neighbors whose 



A GOOD START, 9 

ways of spending Sunday liave intro- 
duced a new laxity into your family ; 
men who talk lightly of God, and women, 
and the Ten Commandments. Most in- 
sidiously they have been eating away 
and deteriorating your nobler life, like 
the percolation of water into the cliffs, 
which ultimately splinters their strong 
sides. The time must come, if you are 
to save yourself, when such parasites 
must be dropped off. There is no al- 
ternative to save yourself from going 
farther with them, than to rid yourself 
of their society. It may seem hard, but 
it is as imperative and urgent as cauter- 
izing a bite from a mad dog. With bad 
companions dismiss bad books, that leave 
a rotten taste, that disincline you to quiet 
holy thought, that poison the springs of 
love and home. And to the renuncia- 



10 A GOOD START. 

tion of these add all conversation, 
pastimes, and places of amusement 
which shrivel the soul, as gas does 
the plants that wither beneath its 
blighting touch. This would be a new 
start indeed ! 

Laxity iii your religious life has, with- 
out doubt, had something to do with 
past failure. As long as the bright sum- 
mer sun shines into the forest glades, 
the fungus has no chance to flourish; 
but when the sunshine wanes, in the 
months of autumn, the woods are filled 
with these strange products of decay. 
It is because we drift from God that our 
lives are the prey to numberless and 
nameless ills. Make the best of all new 
starts, and returning to the more earnest 
habits of earlier days, or beginning them 
from now, give yourself to God, believ- 



A GOOD START. II 

ing that he will receive and welcome you, 
without a word of remonstrance or a 
moment of interval. Form habits of 
morning and evening prayer ; especially 
in the morning get time for deep com- 
munion with God, waiting at his foot- 
stool, or in the perusal of the Bible, till 
he speaks to you. Take up again your 
habits of attendance at the house of 
God ; in the morning and the evening go 
with the multitude that, with the voice of 
praise, keeps holyday; and in the after- 
noon find some niche of Christian ser- 
vice, in your home or elsewhere. Then, 
inasmuch as you do not wish to be a 
slip-carriage, which, when the couplings 
are unfastened, runs for a little behind 
the express, but gets slower and slower 
till it comes to a stand, ask the grace of 
the Holy Spirit to confirm these holy 



12 A GOOD START. 

desires, keeping you true to them, caus- 
ing you to be steadfast, immovable, and 
set on maintaining life on a higher level. 
In all these ways let the new year wit- 
ness a fresh start. 



II 



TEMPERS, AND WHAT TO 
DO WITH THEM, 



11. 



TEMPERS, AND WHAT TO DO WITH 

THEM. 

• 

What a shadow is cast over lives and 
homes by bad tempers ! It is Sunday 
morning, God's day of rest and peace, 
when the worry and rush of the world 
should be quiet, and the voices of news- 
paper boys and hawkers of small wares 
should be still. A family of little chil- 
dren is waiting to be sweetened and 
blessed by God, mother, and father. 
But the mother has become put out over 
something ; she speaks peevishly and 
crossly, her husband hardly dares put in 



1 6 TEMPERS. 

2l word, and the children are scared and 
talk to one another in whispers. Though 
there is everything in the pretty home to 
entrap the sunbeams that play without, 
a shadow lies over all and mars the day. 
Or it is church-time, and the family is 
late ; the husband and father is waiting, 
ready dressed, for the house of God, but 
mother or children are unready, and he 
calls for them, each time in more irrita- 
ble tones ; and when at last they ap- 
pear, "Late again," " Always your way," 
" I am tired and out of patience with 
you,'' bring some sharp retort, and the 
rest of the walk to the sanctuary is either 
spent in silence, or the parents confine 
their observations to whichever child 
they happen to be walking with. What 
good will the service have after such an 
introduction ? 



TEMPERS 1 7 

How often has a happy day's excur- 
sion been spoiled in the same way ! It 
has been the topic of conversation for 
weeks. The wife has been hurrying all 
her work to be ready. Such prepara- 
tions in dress for herself and the chil- 
dren, such cooking of savory tartlets 
and cutting of sandwiches. The hus- 
band has got off for the day with no 
little planning. Sunshine augurs a happy 
excursion. But somehow things don't 
go right. Perhaps the husband is un- 
reasonable and thoughtless, or gives the 
wife reason to think that he doesn't ap- 
preciate her careful provision ; or, per- 
haps, she is over-tired and nervous, and 
misinterprets a remark meant quite in- 
nocently ; but one crosses the other, and 
the ill-natured word, the sour look, the 
sulking manner, somehow make the 



iS TEMPERS. 

whole party miserable — worse than a 
shower of rain would. 

It is impossible to name all the vari- 
ous sorts of ilRemper which vex and 
curse humanity. The hot temper, which 
flashes out with the least provocation. 
The sullen temper, which is a great deal 
worse to deal with, because it takes so 
long to come round. The jealous tem- 
per^ which, in trying to keep all for 
itself, loses all. The suspicious temper, 
which is always imputing the worst mo- 
tives. The malicious temper, which loves 
to instil the drop of poison, or make the 
almost imperceptible stab with its sti- 
letto. Ingenuity has sought to discover 
analogies to these and other forms of 
bad temper among the lower orders of 
the animal creation. This is mulish, 
and that bearish (with the additional 



TEMPERS. 19 

allusion, in this case, to the misfortune 
of a sore head), and the other is viper- 
ish. These comparisons are a little hard 
on our humble friends and companions 
in this great Noah's ark. Could they 
speak, they might say that our sin has 
introduced the jar and discord into their 
lives that might otherwise have been 
peaceful and blessed. 

People who have a temper are much 
to be pitied. They know when it is 
coming on, or has come, and wish they 
hadn't yielded, and hate themselves for 
being disagreeable ; yet cannot shake 
themselves loose from the evil thing that 
has sprung on them as the jaguar on the 
antelope, or the ague on the traveller in 
the tropics. They are disposed, how- 
ever, to fancy that they cannot help 
themselves. They have inherited it, as 



20 TEMPERS. 

they did the color of their hair, or the 
shape of their nose. Their mother had 
it before them, and her father before 
her. If you want them, you must take 
them as they are or leave them ; and 
then it is, after all, better to be as they 
are than like some whom they could 
name. '^ I grant you I have a hot tem- 
per, but then it soon burns itself out, 
and I am awfully sorry; and as every 
one must have something, I would rather 
have this than be unforgiving, or re- 
vengeful, or stupid." So I have heard 
people excuse themselves. 

Now there is some truth, no doubt, in 
this talk about heredity. For good or 
ill, past generations have left their mark 
upon us,- and parents, especially mothers, 
cannot too deeply ponder it in their 
hearts. What they are their children 



TEMPERS, 21 

will become ; and if there is a strong 
taint in the blood, an evil tendency in 
any special directloa, there is the more 
reason why the mother should set her- 
self resolutely to resist it, and replace it 
by the opposite. There is no doubt that 
this can be done. It has been done in 
thousands of instances, and may be 
done again. 

It is impossible to estimate the value 
of good and sunny temper, which goes 
through life with a song ; looking always 
on the bright side of things, and yielding 
to the blows of trial and disappointment 
with an unfailiag grace. It is often as- 
sociated with a sound constitution and 
abounding health, and there is undoubt- 
edly a close connection between the 
two, but it is not dependent on these ; 
for, as the great Dr. Arnold testified of 



22 TEMPERS. 

his sister, who was for years a confirmed 
invalid, but whose chamber was the 
sunniest room in the house, so suffer- 
ing and pain have often only set forth 
to greater advantage the well-spring of 
sweetness and good-nature w^hich has 
poured forth like strains of sweet mu- 
sic amid the clatter of a dusty, noisy 
thoroughfare. 

But how may those afflicted with ill- 
temper be delivered ? The Apostle says, 
'' Laying aside all malice, and all guile, 
and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil- 
speakings, as newborn babes, desire the 
sincere milk of the word, that ye may 
grow thereby'' (i Pet. ii. i, 2). That lay- 
ing aside is a remarkable expression, for 
it means that the thing may be done by 
one sudden, definite act. We are not to 
wait till these evil things die down in 



TEMPERS. 23 

our hearts, but are to make up our minds, 
once and forever, to lay them aside ; as 
a beggar his rags when new clothes are 
offered him. It is a definite act of the 
wilL Will you make it now ? Will you 
say, "From this moment I choose to be 
free of these things, and I deliberately 
put them off '' ? 

But you fear that this will not help 
you, you have so often made good reso- 
lutions before and broken them. Then 
take one further step. Trust Christ to 
keep you. Look up to him and say, 
" Lord, I have often tried to keep my 
temper and failed, but from henceforth 
I entrust its keeping with thee." Ex- 
pect him to undertake the charge. 
Every morning look up into his face 
and say, *^ I am still trusting thee to be 
between me and my evil past, and to fill 



24 TEMPERS. 

me with thy own sweetness, gentleness, 
and patience. '^ In moments of provoca- 
tion dare to trust him still, and to hold 
to the compact by which your helpless- 
ness and evil claim everything from his 
all-sufficiency. Live thus, and you will 
become known for the very opposite 
temper to that which has so often caused 
you poignant regret. 



Ill 



EX A GGERA TION. 



III. 

EXAGGERATION. 

Beneath all exaggeration there is a 
basis of truth. When an American said 
that the whey which flowed from the 
making of a large cheese in his country 
was sufficient to run three sawmills ; and 
when another affirmed that the soil of 
his farm was so prolific that the tendrils 
of the vine w^hich he had just sown caught 
him up and entwined around his legs be- 
fore he could get over the fence, — there 
was no doubt some truth at the basis of 
their statements, though only as a drop of 
homoeopathic medicine in a tumblerful 



28 EX AGGER A TION. 

of water. And it is this small residuum 
of truth that veils to the eyes of really 
good people the evil of this habit. There 
is no doubt that, in the last analysis, ex- 
aggeration must be classed under the 
head of lying and falsehood. Those 
that exaggerate are excommunicate from 
the Temple of Truth. 

I heard Mr. Moody say the other day 
that a lady had come to him, asking how 
she might be delivered from the habit 
of exaggeration, to which she was very 
prone. " Call it lying, madam," was the 
uncompromising answer, '' and deal with 
it as you would with any other temptation 
of the devil." A Greater has said, "' Let 
your speech be Yea, yea ; Nay, nay : for 
whatsoever is more than these is of the 
evil one." 

We exaggerate in our narrations. When 



EX A G GERA TION. 29 

a little lad, I had been listening with 
amazement to the description, given by 
a lady, of some recent experiences, when 
my grandfather whispered to me slyly, 
*' All her geese are swans." The words 
have often come back to me. When 
mothers describe the excellences of their 
children, their wit, precocity, and beauty; 
when travellers narrate their hairbreadth 
escapes, their marvellous experiences by 
land or water, all of which end so neatly 
as to resemble the often polished deal ; 
when ministers give themselves up to 
tell the story of the crowds they address, 
the magnitude of their church operations, 
or the deftness with which they have 
managed to get their own way, — one is 
inclined to think that, under the idealiz- 
ing effect of a strong imagination, geese 
have become swans. 



30 EXAGGERATION, 

It seems almost impossible for some 
people to tell an unvarnished tale. The 
actual is not wonderful enough. They 
must gild the common sunlight, and paint 
the familiar petals of the flowers. They 
think that effect can be produced only by 
daubing their canvas with great masses 
of gaudy color. They forget that the 
quiet shining of the stars is more healthy 
and beneficent than the grandest display 
of fireworks that ever poured in cascades, 
flashed in wheels, or fllled the sky with 
ten thousand vanishing fairy lights. For 
my part, I prefer the earlier paintings of 
Turner to the later, and the stories of 
George Eliot to those of Disraeli or 
Bulwer-Lytton ; and I think that most 
ordinary people would concur in the 
judgment. 

We exaggerate in our choice of words. 



EX AGGER A TION. 3 1 

It is too terrible to hear the young ladies 
of the period discussing a panorama of 
Alps, a sunset at sea, a vision like that 
of Fountains or Clairvaulx under the 
soft light of the moon. " Awful," "• kill- 
ing," ''awfully jolly," "too, too, don't- 
yer-know," are quite the most refined 
and moderate that I need cite here ; one 
has no desire to put more of this base 
coin into circulation. This pernicious 
habit arises in part from ignorance of 
the derivation, meaning, and value of 
words, but particularly from the desire 
to be conspicuous among the little group 
around them. Many people mistake big- 
ness for greatness, bulk for value. They 
resemble the Chinamen in New York, 
who buy the largest boots procurable for 
their money, under the impression that 
in this way they can best obtain their 



32 EX AGGER A TION. 

money's worth. It is a cheap and easy 
manoeuvre to hide the paucity of your 
ideas beneath the vehemence and loud- 
ness of your speech. This accounts for 
a good deal of loudness in voice and 
extravagance in phrase. 

We also exaggerate i?i our religious 
phraseology. In certain prayers we are 
wont to hear, there is gross exaggeration 
in the confessions of sin. If all that some 
men say of themselves in prayer be true, 
they certainly deserve to be put out of 
the church, or be interviewed by their 
ministers. But if you were to take them 
at their word, and refuse to allow your 
families to associate with theirs, or with- 
draw your custom from their stores, on 
the ground of their confessions of de- 
pravity, they would be very much sur- 
prised. Many a man would threaten to 



EXAGGERATION. 33 

knock you down if you applied to him 
the epithets he applies to himself. 

So with expressions of love and devo- 
tion to the Saviour. We often hear him 
addressed in prayer in the most familiar 
and luscious terms. The tenderest, love- 
liest names are addressed to him. Of 
course, where these are flowers gathered 
from the garden of a holy soul, they are 
fragrant and delightful, awakening the 
dull sense, and quickening the flagging 
zeal of all who hear ; but where they are 
far in advance of the evident personal 
experience, and are contradicted by the 
behavior of the utterer, as he forces his 
way into the tram-car from the drenching 
shower in which the meeting closes, — 
you feel that there is an air of unreality 
and extravagance in the whole thing, 
which must have a terrible effect on him, 



34 EX A G GERA TION. 

while it reacts on others like the heavy 
air that has fanned acres of poppies. 

Exaggeration infects all our life. The 
bride exaggerates the number and value 
of her presents. The tradesman's ad- 
vertisements announce that he has lo,- 
Goo bedsteads on view, when he has 
only 1,000 at the most; that he can 
offer 1,000 cheeses to choose from, when, 
with great difficulty, he can get 100 into 
his cellar ; that he is selling off at an 
alarming sacrifice, when all in the trade 
know that he is making large profits. 

The minister says there are hundreds 
in his congregation, when, if heads were 
reckoned, it would be found that there 
were only four or ^n^ score, of whom 
several were children. Most of us are 
adepts at drawing the longbow. We are 
not content with the reflection cast by 



EX A GGERA TION, 3 5 

events on the plain glass of truth, but 
distort them by the convex or the con- 
cave, like the two mirrors which are some- 
times placed outside eating-houses to 
show the effect of a good meal on the 
face. 

This habit may be traced to childhood. 
The simplicity and naturalness of babe- 
life is rapidly becoming a thing of the 
past. We force the growth of heaven's 
nurselings, encourage them in smartness 
and old-fashionedness, tell them extrava- 
gant fairy stories, rear them in artificial 
gaslight, and then complain that they 
have lost the sweet ingenuousness of 
youth, and grown into young men and 
women of the period before they have 
barely reached their teens. It is as if 
nature should rush into summer with- 
out a spring, or the day spring into 



36 EX AGGER A TION. 

the glare of noon without morning. We 
must begin building the Palace of Truth 
in the earliest impressions of the nur- 
sery. 

We should accustom ourselves to think 
and speak accurately. Nothing so tests 
the quality of our minds as our use and 
choice of adjectives. When people know 
all your adjectives they have come to the 
end of your treasures. It is partly due 
to our slovenliness in observing and 
describing that we exaggerate in our 
speech ; and the evil would be remedied 
if young people would read the best 
poetry with careful discrimination, ask- 
ing why Browning or Tennyson uses 
such a word in such a connection. It 
is specially valuable, with this object, to 
translate some foreign author — Homer, 
Virgil, Dante, Racine, or Schiller — find- 



EX A GGERA TION. 3 7 

ing an English equivalent for each word, 
though it consume an hour of thought 
and research. 

Let us, also, in describing anything in 
which we have taken a part, remember 
that God is listening, and be on the 
watch against the natural tendency of 
our tongue to take its coloring matter 
from the gorgeous palette of the imagi- 
nation rather than from the neutral tints 
of sober fact. Let us ask the Spirit of 
Truth to set a watch upon the door of 
our lips, allowing nothing to pass out on 
which he cannot set his seal. Whatever 
we do, in word as well as deed, let us 
do all in the name and for the glory of 
Jesus. Why should we seek to attract 
the attention of men to ourselves, when 
to do so may detract from the glory of 
his workmanship in our character ? And 



38 



EXAGGERA TION. 



\tj in the heat of conversation, we are 
betrayed into exaggeration, and are re- 
minded of it afterwards by tlie Holy 
Spirit, let us at once make application 
for cleansing in the precious blood, and 
confess to others the wrong we have 
done to the sacred majesty of Truth. 



IV. 

ON FALLING IN LOVE. 



i 



IV. 



ON FALLING IN LOVE. 

No flirting, young people, please ! You 
cannot flit around the flame without the 
risk of burning your wings ; and remem- 
ber, if these are lost, you cannot get an- 
other pair ; you may be able to crawl or 
limp, but you will never again bask in 
the sunbeams or dance with merry- 
hearted glee in the shadows. In other 
words, you may play at love-making till 
you lose the power of loving truly, ox 
forfeit for evermore the right of entrance 
into love's most hol}^ place. Finally, you 
may find it impossible to convince an- 
41 



42 



ON FALLING IN lOVE. 



other that for once you are in dead ear- 
nest, and that the time of love has come 
to you at length. There is nothing more 
terrible in a woman's life than to dis- 
cover that she has played make-believe 
so long that men treat her only as their 
plaything and toy, and think that she 
is incapable of the true passion. '' I 
mean it this time/' the flirt says, by look 
and manner. ^^I do not believe you," 
the answer is cast back, whether by man 
to woman or by woman to man. "" I 
have watched you narrowly, and can 
count up the hearts you have broken, 
the lives you have wrecked. You are a 
Siren, whose bewitching music beguiles 
to death.'' " Nay, but I am genuine this 
once. I mean what I say." " I do not 
believe you ; I do not believe you ; I dare 
not trust you.'^ 



ON FALLING IN LOVE. 43 

So, whatever you do, young people, 
don't flirt. Never appear to love when 
you don't. Never lead another on to 
think that you really care w^hen you 
are not sure. Never play with another's 
affections, for fear you should lead to the 
giving of what can never be replaced, 
and for which you have given no equiv- 
alent. I am old-fashioned enough to 
think that a man or woman loves 7'eaUy 
only once. I know what may be said on 
the other side, but you must let me think 
so. The cream only rises to the surface 
in its full wealth once. The perfect 
beauty of the morning vanishes an hour 
after dawn. Therefore, you who have 
not yet given the one love of your 
life, do not let it go until you are 
sure that it is not wrongly bestowed. 
And you who are seeking the twin- 



44 ON FALLING IN LOVE. 

soul, be sure of your own love before 
you give a sign. 

Some of the happiest marriages I have 
known have been those in which the man 
and wife were boy and girl together. 
They played the same games, got into 
the same scrapes, roamed the autumn 
woods nutting, and skated over the win- 
ter ice. But not less happy may those 
unions be which have the romantic inter- 
est of love at first sight. It is wonderful, 
this falling in love. A man is going so- 
berly along the path of life, with no par- 
ticular interest in any one, when suddenly 
a face, a figure, a voice, crosses his path, 
and straightway his heart is gone. His 
ideals are realized, his dreams have taken 
shape. And from that moment, with that 
wonderful idealizing faculty, he imputes 
to that young girl all that the poet in him 



ON FALLING IN LOVE. 45 

can imagine, or the artist in him depict. 
'' I don't see anything in the girl/'' a 
companion says. But he might, poor pur- 
blind mortal, as well expect to see what 
Turner saw in a sunset. Take care, 
young girl, that you live up to that ideal". 
I pray you, do nothing, say nothing, to 
dash it to the ground ; it is the most sa- 
cred power love can wield. Live worthy 
of it; do not descend to his level, but 
lift him, lift him to yours. True love is 
built on respect. 

We can never forget that Robert 
Browning, when in London, was wont to 
repair to the church in Marylebone, 
where he was wed, and kiss the very 
steps on which his bride had stood. 
What love was his, of which she sings 
in those matchless Portuguese Sonnets ! 
But what an inspiration for her, or any 



46 ON FALLING IN LOVE. 

woman, to show herself worthy of the 
ideal which love flings over her every 
movement, her handwriting, the very 
trinkets she wears, the books she 
reads. 

If you may not flirt, you should take 
every means of knowing one another. 
It seems to me that the practice among 
the working-classes, of walking out to- 
gether before there is any thought of 
love-making, is an eminently wise one. 
We should hear of fewer ill-assorted mar- 
riages among the upper classes, if there 
were more opportunities of young men 
and women becoming acquainted with 
each other than can be presented at a 
ball or a crush. In the United States, 
young men can take young girls to 
places of public amusement without hav- 
ing their names unpleasantly associated 



ON FALLING IN LOVE, 47 

by gossip. This were worthy of impor- 
tation into England. 

However it is managed, be sure to 
know something more of man or woman 
than is given when either is dressed in 
Sunday best, and clothed in most attrac- 
tive and persuasive manners. All is not 
gold that glitters. Some people are like 
the baskets of strawberries sold in Lon- 
don streets; all the big ones are at the 
top, and those below are very, very 
small. Young ladies ! I am sorry to say 
it, but some of the nicest of nice men 
are the most arrant scamps that ever 
walked. Do not believe their word, do 
not entrust yourselves to them, unless 
you know something more of them than 
they say of themselves. And, young 
men, I would warn you not to think that 
a girl can be judged by her manners in 



4^ ON FALLING IN LOVE. 

the drawing-room, or at a picnic. Try to 
drop in in the morning ; make an excuse 
of calling. See how she looks in her 
morning dress ; is it tidy, neat, and suit- 
able ; is she helping her mother with the 
younger children ; is she pleasant in her 
behavior to the servants ? I had once to 
choose a wife for a young working-man, 
and was assured that my anticipations 
as to the suitability of a certain maiden 
were justified, because she opened the 
door of her father's cottage at ten in the 
morning with her hair tidy, a neat print 
dress (the sleeves of which were tucked 
up above her elbows), and soapsuds were 
steaming all up her bare arms. " She will 
do," I said to myself. 

Notice, when you are with the one to 
whom you are attracted, these points : 
How does the young man speak of his 



ON FALLING IN LOVE. 49 

parents ? does he call his mother 
mother ? Does he take an interest in 
his younger brothers or sisters ? Does 
he attend church for himself, or only 
because you go with him ? Does he 
ever suggest taking you into the public- 
house, or to some place of amusement 
where women are treated with unhal- 
lowed familiarity and scant respect ? 

As a young man acts in any of these 
respects, you may judge him; and re- 
member, that little unsuspected words 
and acts on his part are more likely to re- 
veal his true character than any number 
of protestations and vows. Every man 
reveals his real self once or twice to the 
woman he woos ; and if only women 
would act on the slight suspicions which 
sometimes cross them, how many broken 
hearts would be saved ! 



50 ON FALLING IN LOVE. 

Do not suppose that you can alter a 
man after you are wed. If you cannot 
fashion him before marriage, you cannot 
after. A woman dreams that when once 
she is wife, she will be able to mould 
her husband to her mind. It is a vain 
illusion, which in millions of cases has 
been rudely dissipated. Besides which, 
are we always able to command the co- 
operation of the Holy Spirit, especially 
when we have acted in direct violation 
of his expostulations 1 

If you are not sure, don't let your 
heart go, young girl. Break off an en- 
gagement rather than expose your wooer 
and yourself to lasting misery. ]t will 
be kinder to him in the end, because 
where there is not absolute oneness 
there cannot be lasting happiness. If 
he threatens to commit suicide, be well 



ON FALLING IN LOVE. 5 1 

assured he will never do it. He has no 
right to talk to you like that, and is a 
coward to play upon your feelings. Be- 
sides, a man who talks so lightly of 
throwing away his own life is not one to 
whom a woman should entrust hers. 

Young men had better consult their 
mothers or sisters before they take the 
irrevocable step. Women are quick at 
reading character, and those that love 
you will be most likely to choose well 
for you. Let the women of your family 
into your secret. Dear souls, they will 
guess your secret even if you do not 
tell it, and you may as well tell it; it 
will please them, and they will advise 
you well. 

There is no harm in early engage- 
ments. When I am sure that it is a 
love-match, and in other respects suita- 



52 ON FALLING IN LOVE. 

ble, I am glad to see two young people 
drawn together, though in their teens. 
Probably nothing will more certainly 
keep them pure and sweet amid the con- 
taminating influences of the world. Let 
them begin early ; it does not matter 
how long the courtship lasts. The court- 
ing times are very happy and blessed 
times, when young hearts are not too 
full of hopes and plans and anticipations 
to enjoy the pathway over which they 
are passing, and cull its flowers. But 
in these courting days remember that 
your relationship be kept on the highest 
level. It must be spirit to spirit, soul to 
soul. That which begins and ends with 
the physical will sooner or later land 
you both in a ditch. Take care ! 

Beware ! The physical must be the 
sacrament and expression of the spirit- 



ON FALLING IN LOVE. 53 

ual, else it will widen into the rift that 
makes love's music mute. 

Mind that love-making be only in the 
Lord. Let it be ensphered in the love 
of God. Then, like the wedding-ring, 
the beginning will be everywhere, the 
end nowhere. For a Christian to marry 
one who is out of Christ is the grossest 
folly. Not only is there a flagrant act 
of disobedience to the distinct command 
of Christ, but there is the additional cer- 
tainty that sooner or later there will be 
manifested an incongruity, a disparity, 
a want of sympathy in the deepest and 
most sacred subjects. I have had a 
wide experience, and been admitted into 
numberless homes, but I have never 
seen perfect happiness where this dis- 
tinct command of the gospel has been 
violated ; and I have never met a case 



54 



ON FALLING IN LOVE, 



in which the believing partner has won 
the unbeliever, except when faith may 
have come to the heart of one after 
marriage. 

Lastly, to all who are unwed, I give 
my fervent advice : Make it a matter 
of earnest prayer. Let your heavenly 
Father choose for you. Do not think 
that life is necessarily a failure if no su- 
preme love enters it. There are very 
happy and useful lives on every side 
that have never been blessed with a 
supreme affection. Live for God. Make 
him first. Wait on him and keep his 
way. In his own good time and way 
he will give you your heart's desire. 



V. 

ON BEING STRAIGHT. 



V. 

ON BEING STRAIGHT. 

To be straight is to be true. There 
is no more important exhortation on the 
page of Scripture, than where the Apos- 
tle says, " Whatsoever things aj^e t7'2ie . . . 
think 071 these things P A friend of mine, 
educated in one of our great EngHsh 
schools, says that the most formative 
words of his life were addressed to him 
by his head master, as he said good-by : 
'''Be true,^^ he said, ''always he tnie.^^ 
My friend records that those words have 
often come back to him at critical mo- 
ments of his life, indicating his path as 
with a finger of light. 
57 



58 ON BEING STRAIGHT, 

Every man, in his heart of hearts, has 
some knowledge of what is eternally right 
and good. You see it in the little child 
who blushes and conceals itself when it 
has told a lie, or taken forbidden fruit, 
and who shares its sugar-candy with its 
little brother. It may be but a dim 
flicker, but it is there. The radiance 
that streams through the open door of 
heaven may have become very faint by 
the time it reaches the spot on the dark 
common where you stand, but unless you 
wilfully turn your back on it, it falls 
around your feet and on your heart. 

Truth, so far as it concerns us, is that 
attitude of soul which thinks and acts in 
consistence with its highest ideals. And 
the marvel is, that as we act consistently 
with our ideals, they tend to become 
always nobler and purer, and to approxi- 



ON BEING STRAIGHT. 59 

mate more nearly to those highest stan- 
dards which exist in the nature of God. 
If a man be true to his better self, he 
will become the pupil of the Spirit of 
Truth, and catch a glimpse of farther 
horizons, so that ultimately he will come 
out into the great light of eternity, as it 
shines from the face of Christ. 

Be true hi your speech. Do not say 
one thing to a man's face, and another 
behind his back. Do not flatter where 
you inwardly despise and contemn. Do 
not exaggerate as you repeat your pet 
stories, for the sake of effect, and to win 
a smile. Let your speech mirror your 
convictions, so far as may be right and 
possible. Let your yea be yea, and your 
nay, nay. Do not puff the article you 
want to sell beyond its real value, or say 
a single word more of it than you can 



6o ON BEING STRAIGHT. 

verify. In the old fable the palace walls 
were panelled with mirrors, on which a 
mist arose when insincere and untruthful 
w^ords were uttered within their pre- 
cincts ; realize that such mirrors are ever 
around you, and see that you never cause 
a stain or blur. 

Be true in your actions. If you are an 
artist, portray Nature as you find her, 
never using your colors for mere eifect 
or display. If you are a mechanic, do 
not make articles merely for show or 
sale, but because they realize the pur- 
pose they profess, boots to keep the feet 
dry, clothes to wear, furniture to last. 
The world is full of shoddy and sham, of 
scamped workmanship in our houses, 
of mottled paper that looks like marble, 
of tinsel that resembles gold, of paste- 
jewels, and veneer. Do not choose a 



ON BEING STRAIGHT, 6 1 

trade for your boy which is a success in 
proportion as it is a mimicry and sham. 
Do not deal in counterfeits, lest you con- 
tract the habit of unveracity and false- 
hood. See that your hands and eyes and 
heart are in rhythm with your highest 
conceptions of what is honest, lovely, and 
of good report. Bear witness, as Jesus 
did, to the Reality of Things. Did Paul 
ever make a tent which deceived the pur- 
chaser ? 

Be true in your opinions. We are all 
liable to be warped in our opinions by 
considerations of what is popular, expe- 
dient, and likely to commend us to our 
fellows. The statesman is sorely tempted 
to listen to the wire-pullers of his party, 
the catch-cries of his constituency, the 
lead of some popular organ, and to al- 
low these to divert him from the path of 



62 ON BEING STRAIGHT. 

conviction and conscience. How often 
have men like Pilate been led to act 
against their clear judgment by the in- 
sistence and fear of the mob. Like 
waves of the sea, they are driven by the 
winds and tossed. Like the weather- 
vane, they move around with the least 
puff of breeze. This is specially the 
temptation of religious leaders, who are 
assailed by many voices, such as : Will 
it pay? Will it attract people, or aleniate 
them "^ Will it be popular, or the reverse ? 
Life is pitiable, indeed, when such con- 
siderations have to be balanced. ' 

"Better be a dog, and bay the moon! " 

Of course we must speak the truth in 
love. Some seem to think that truth- 
fulness, of necessity, involves rudeness 
and ruggedness of speech, a rasp on the 



ON BEING STRAIGHT. 63 

tongue, an abruptness in the act. But 
this need not be. The King of Truth 
was also the good shepherd, whose words 
were music, whose ways were mercy as 
well as truth, and whose glory comprised, 
in equal proportions, truth and grace. 

Whatever happens, be true. As you 
stand behind the counter, a question may 
be asked by a customer about some arti- 
cle you are desirous of selling. An eva- 
sive answer, or a slight deviation from the 
strict truth on your part, will complete 
the transaction. The manager or shop- 
walker is listening. Shall you say it .^ 
If you do, no one will be much the 
worse. If you don't, you will lose your 
situation. What shall you do ? Believe 
me, there is no alternative. You must 
follow your King, the King of Truth. 
And if you are cast out, he will receive 



64 ON BEING STRAIGHT. 

you, and count you his companion, and 
give you a deeper glimpse than ever into 
his heart 

Or you are beginning to question cer- 
tain conceptions of truth in which you 
have been reared. The more you think 
of them, the more unable you feel to ac- 
cept them. To renounce them will give 
pain to those you love, will lead them to 
look at you shyly, will condemn you to 
ostracism and misunderstanding. On 
the other hand, it would be easy to shut 
your eyes, and sign your name to what 
all your neighbors hold. But, I pray 
you, do not do it, or you will put out 
your eyes as surely as Hubert's hot irons 
put out Arthur's. 

This is why there is so much infidel- 
ity in the world. There are evidences 
enough, not only in books, but in the 



ON BEING STRAIGHT. (^S 

heart and soul, in life, in the world 
around. The moonbeam's silver path 
comes across the mere to the feet of 
every young warrior, and the hand 
clothed in samite offers to each the Ex- 
calibur sword. For each dreamer, of all 
the young pilgrims across the wold of 
time, there waits the angel-ladder. Be- 
side each one of us the bush in the 
desert burns with fire. The difference 
between those who see and do not see 
these things lies in their devotion or dis- 
obedience to truth, so far as they know it. 

If a man refuses to obey the truth, so 
far as it is revealed to him, the glimmer- 
ing light dies out from his soul, and his 
eyes become dimmed, so that he cannot 
see. 

If, on the other hand, a man obeys the 
truth, he is like one that had been lost 



(>^ ON BEING STRAIGHT, 

in the catacombs ; suddenly stooping 
down, he touches a cord, which he 
catches up and follows hour after hour, 
until it conducts him to the mouth of the 
long corridor, whence he steps forth into 
the perfect day. 

It may be that some shall scan this 
page who have no faith in Christ or 
Christianity. I ask them to follow this 
simple recipe : Put away all from your 
life, in speech, thought, or act, which is 
inconsistent with your highest concep- 
tions of the supremely Right and Good. 
Then be true to those conceptions, and, 
as you are, you will find them heighten 
and widen ; you will discover yourself 
one in a great company, who are all 
travelling in the same direction towards 
the rising sun ,' after a while you will 
encounter One who speaks of things of 



ON BEING STRAIGHT. 67 

which you have become profoundly and 
experimentally convinced ,^ being of the 
truth, you will listen intently to him as 
he tells of things that lie beyond your 
view ; but as he spake truly of things in 
which you could follow him, so you will 
believe that he speaks truly of these 
others ; as when he says that God is a 
Father, that hereafter there is a home 
for those who trust and love, that he is 
the only begotten Son, to know whom is 
to know God, and to follow whom is to 
have everlasting life. Be straight : be 
strong : be true. 



VI. 

ON DOING A GOOD DA V S 
WORK. 



VI. 



ON DOING A GOOD DAYS WORK. 

Longfellow's village blacksmith felt 
that '^ something accomplished, some- 
thing done," had earned a night's re- 
pose ; and I suppose that he did little 
else than shoe the farmers' horses, or put 
new shares to their ploughs ; yet he had 
the perpetual consciousness that he 
was doing something in the world, con- 
tributing to its well-being, performing a 
necessary part in the machinery of the 
village-life. It is not to be supposed 
that the honest man did his work for 
the money it brought him, but for the 



72 DOING A GOOD DAY'S WORK, 

love of doing it, the pleasure of minis- 
tering, however humbly, to the com- 
mon weal. However well he were paid, 
it would be a source of infinite regret 
and shame if his work were superficially 
and perfunctorily executed ; if a horse 
were lamed, because the nail was driven 
too far home, or a day's work in the 
sowing-time were lost because the share 
broke in mid-furrow. 

This is the ideal of all good work. 
Too many work for the wage to be paid 
them at the end of the week, and be- 
come so degraded in their aim that they 
will only put in the best work when 
they are promised the highest pay. Let 
the remuneration be second-rate, their 
work will be second-rate ; let the work- 
shop be a peasant's cottage, their st34e of 
workmanship will lack the finish which 



DOING A GOOD DAY'S WORK, 73 

would certainly be put in for a palace 
or church. This appraising of our work 
by the amount of wage it will bring is 
vicious in the extreme, and sooner or 
later begets a perfunctory, superficial, 
and mean disposition. The man who 
reserves his best work for the best pay 
will ultimately be content to put in the 
semblance of the best work, though it 
be a bit of arrant scamping, in order to 
secure, as soon as he may, the promised 
wage J in this case, however, it should 
scorch his hand as the wage of un- 
righteousness. 

Do you think that the old monks, who 
built religiously, and for the eye of God, 
stopped to ask whether some curiously 
carved stone was intended for the vaulted 
ceiling, or the ornamentation of a door- 
way through which successive genera- 



74 DOING A GOOD DAY'S WORK. 

tions of admiring pilgrims would pass? 
It was enough to be permitted to put 
one piece of carving in the house raised 
for the honor and glory of God ; there 
must be nothing inferior there, nothing 
that would cause the carver shame if 
he met the memory of it in any world, 
nothing that would seem contemptible 
to future generations if it should drop 
from its place to lie within the easy 
inspection of every passer-by. 

Can you imagine a true artist paint- 
ing an inferior picture because it would 
be skied in an exhibition, or sold cheap 
at an auction ? He would tell you that 
he dared not do it. He would be untrue 
to his loftiest ideals ; if he permitted 
himself to fall so low, he would soon lose 
his power of realizing his dreams, and 
deteriorate into a sorry hack. The ar- 



DOING A GOOD DAY'S WORK. 7S 

tist's eye would fail to perceive, the 
artist's hand to achieve. Nature would 
veil her charms from his eye, who sought 
them only for mercenary ends. 

Would a physician, who was inspired 
with the true spirit of his profession, 
reserve his deepest insight, his longest 
patience, his most skilful treatment, for 
the rich, whose golden sovereigns would 
freely pour into his banking-account, 
whilst the child of the peasant might 
take its chance ? 

And if each of these is expected to 
do his work in the world for the honor 
of his profession, and the lasting benefit 
of men, why should not all men and 
women do whatever God has given them 
to do for the same high end ? Not for 
fee or reward, not for the wages which 
are, of course, necessary and deserved, 



76 DOING A GOOD DAY'S WORK. 



not for the applause and praise of one 
or many; but because work is honor- 
able and noble, because a true man 
finds his highest reward in putting his 
noblest self into all he does, because 
it is a scandal and shame to be con- 
tent with anything less than the best, 
because God and his high angels are 
looking on, and because scamped work 
will return on us in other worlds to con- 
front and shame us. There is no surer 
sign of deterioration of character than 
contentment with inferior work. 

We are accustomed to speak of our 
work as a vocation or calling. Let every 
man, says the Apostle, abide in the call- 
ing in which he was called. Some are 
called to be servants, some to be mas- 
ters ; some to administer five talents, 
others one ; but every man is as much 



DOING A GOOD DAY'S WORK. 77 

called of God to his life-work as the 
minister is called to preach, or the phy- 
sician to combat disease. Do you expect 
these to be above the questions of dol- 
lars and cents, there is the same obli- 
gation on yourself. Would you think it 
mean of the servant of God to preach at 
half or quarter power if he were to re- 
ceive but a trifling solatium, or to cease 
preaching if he shall have realized a 
competence ? But are you not guilty of 
similar meanness if, in altered condi- 
tions, you permit your conduct to be af- 
fected by sordid considerations '^. Some 
men are called to sweep chimneys, and 
others to be archbishops, but in the 
sight of the Almighty there may be less 
inequality than we suppose ; and the 
sweep will stand highest at last, if he has 
driven the soot out of the intricacies of 



78 DOING A GOOD DAY'S WORK, 

old chimneys with more eager care and 
with nobler purpose than the archbishop 
has administered his diocese. 

What counts in God's sight is not the 
work we do, but the way in which we do 
it. Two men may work side by side in 
the same factory or store : the one, at the 
end of the day, shall have put in a solid 
block of gold, silver, and precious stones ; 
whilst the other has contributed to the 
fabric of his life-work an ephemeral, in- 
substantial addition of wood, hay, and 
stubble, destined to be burnt. What is 
the difference between these two t To 
the eye of man, there is none ; to the eye 
of God, much : because the one has been 
animated, in the lowliest, commonest ac- 
tions, by the lofty motive of pleasing 
God, and doing the day's work thor- 
oughly and well ; whilst the other wrought 



DOING A GOOD DAY'S WORK. 79 

to escape blame, to secure the commen- 
dation of man, or to win a large wage. 
. Never be ashamed of honest toil, of 
labors, however trivial or menial, which 
you can execute beneath the inspiration 
of noble aims ; but be ashamed of the 
work which, though it makes men hold 
their breath in wonder, yet, in your 
heart, you know to have emanated from 
earthly, selfish, and ignoble aims. 

What we make, makes us. The slight 
gauze on which the mantle of the incan- 
descent light is formed flares away in a 
moment, but the solid fabric wrought on 
it by chemical agents will be luminous 
for a thousand hours. So the things 
we make in the world pass away as a 
wreath of flame, but the motives with 
which we do them go to make ourselves 
for better or worse. If you do your work 



So DOING A GOOD DAY'S WORK. 

in slovenliness, you become a sloven. If 
you do your work perfunctorily, you be- 
come a hypocrite. If you work only for 
the eye of man, the sense of God will die 
out of your life. 

Men fret, for instance, at being tied 
to a clerk's desk. Surely, they say, any 
one could direct these envelopes, copy 
these letters, cast up these interminable 
columns ; and in their contempt for their 
life-work they fail to see that its very 
unimportance is giving them a better 
opportunity of cultivating punctuality, 
patience, fidelity, and similar passive vir- 
tues, than they would have if they played 
a more conspicuous part in the world's 
life, or in spheres where certain other 
considerations nerve to supreme efforts, 
which, in their case, can only be called 
forth by lofty principle. 



DOING A GOOD DAY'S WORK. 8 1 

At the end of life's brief day we shall 
be rewarded, not according to the work 
we have done, but to the faithfulness 
with which we have endeavored to do 
our duty, in whatever sphere. Let us 
live and work with that day in view ; and 
let us never forget that the ultimate re- 
ward for conspicuous service will be 
given not to the one who seemed, to the 
eye of man, to render it, but to those 
also who enabled him to render it. 

The servant who prepares my food, or 
saves me the necessity of doing the many 
duties of my home, thus setting me free 
to write, or preach, or minister to men, 
will, in God's reckoning, be credited with 
no inconsiderable share of the results of 
anything which may have been achieved 
through my endeavors. The great deed 
that blesses the race seems to be wrought 



82 DOING A GOOD DAY'S WORK. 

by one, but it is really the result of the 
contributed quotas of scores and hun- 
dreds of unnamed and unnoticed work- 
ers ; and these, in so far as they entered 
into the spirit of his labors, shall share 
the reward. Those that sow and those 
that reap shall rejoice together. 

This is the way to do a good day's 
work. Begin it with God ; do all in the 
name of the Lord Jesus and for the glory 
of God ; count nothing common or un- 
clean in itself — it can only be so when 
the motive of your life is low. Be not 
content with eye-service, but as servants 
of God do everything from the heart, and 
for his "Well done." Ask him to kin- 
dle and maintain in your heart the lofti- 
est motives ; and be as men that watch 
for the coming of the Master of the 
house. 



VII 



SAVORLESS SALT. 



VII. 



SAVORLESS SALT. 



No wonder that the common people 
hung on Christ's words. He was a Mas- 
ter of the Art of Illustration, because 
he sought his emblems, not from remote 
corners of creation, or its recondite pro- 
cesses, but from the common incidents 
of ordinary human experience. Salt and 
light, birds and lilies, gates and roads, 
trees and their fruit, houses and their 
foundations. But there was more than 
art. He knew the hidden secrets of cre- 
ation, and could tell the heavenly pattern 
upon which everything was fashioned. 
85 



86 SAVORLESS SALT. 

And how full of encouragement he 
was ! He was so willing to give men 
credit for their best; and in doing so, 
summoned to view qualities, the exist- 
ence of which their possessors had never 
dreamed, or encouraged them to con- 
tinue in paths on which they had ven- 
tured with hesitating steps. It was not 
a small encouragement to these humble 
peasants and fishermen to be told that 
they were capable of checking the evil 
that was eating out the vitals of society 
around them, as salt stays the progress 
of corruption. Have we ever realized 
sufficiently, or used, this antiseptic 
power with which all good men are 
invested t 

It is a sad comment ofi society that it 
needs salt. You do not think of salting 
life, but death, to keep it from rotting. 



SAVORLESS SALT, S; 

This, then, was Christ's verdict on the 
society of his time. It had enjoyed the 
benefit of all that Greek intellectualism 
and Roman government could effect, and 
yet was like a carcass on the point of 
putrefaction. But is not this the state 
of all society from which religion is ban- 
ished, or where it has become a system 
of rites and dogmas 1 Go into any large 
workshop or counting-house or public- 
house, where men feel able to talk freely, 
and there is too often the smell of the 
charnel-house in the stories that pass 
round, and the jokes that pass from lip 
to lip. The absence of ladies is sup- 
posed to give a certain amount of li- 
cense, as if gentlemen had no special 
squeamishness. 

Here is something iJiat each of us ca?i do. 
Perhaps we cannot speak ; we cannot 



SS SAVORLESS SALT, 

shed a far-reaching ray of light to warn 
from the black rocks, and guide to har- 
bor ; we seem shut away from scenes of 
Christian activity, but we can be good 
salt, checking the evil which would other- 
wise infect the air of the world, and 
breed disease in young and healthy 
lives. 

The salt has Just to he salt. It need not 
attempt to be a voice, a spark of light, or 
a thrill of electricity. Let it just be good, 
wholesome salt, and quietly, unobtru- 
sively, it will fulfil its great mission. A 
little child has often arrested the commis- 
sion of a horrid crime, with its innocent 
look and its trembling, tearful face. A 
gentleman who travels much among 
lonely farmhouses told me the other day, 
that whenever a fierce dog ran barking at 
him, he stooped down, and looked it in 



SAVORLESS SALT. . 89 

the face ; and he said that he had never 
met a dog yet which could stand a steady 
gaze; so there is something in the look of 
a really good man that abashes sin. The 
presence of a Henry Martyn has turned 
an East Indiaman from a floating hell 
into a very paradise. The look of a Fin- 
ney has stayed the blasphemy of a large 
factory, and brought all the mechanics 
to their knees. Billy Bray's life purified 
a whole district of Cornish miners. In 
fact, it would be impossible to tell of all 
the prisons, the backwoods settlements, 
the soldiers' camps, the slave planta- 
tions, where the progress of sin has been 
arrested, and the devil himself has slunk 
abashed to his lair, before the presence 
of a resolute genuine man of God. You 
might do the same, only you must be a 
genuine character. Salt must be good 



90 SAVORLESS SALT. 

before it can effect its great preventive 
ministry. But if it is good it will do it. 
And if you really are full of the Holy 
Spirit, and of faith, your very presence 
will be all that is needful to stay the evil 
that cries to Heaven. 

When I was in Liverpool, the women 
of a large reformatory ward broke into 
open rebellion, expelled their warders, 
barred the windows and doors, and gave 
themselves up to every species of inde- 
cency. The authorities were nonplussed, 
and could not tell what to do ; but Mrs. 
Josephine Butler volunteered to go alone, 
still the disturbance, and bring these 
poor lost creatures back to decency. The 
extreme difficulty and danger of the task 
were set before her ; but she persisted in 
her request, and finally carried her point. 
As soon as she appeared, she was met 



SAVORLESS SALT. 9^ 

with a yell of madness ; but the uproar 
at last subsided, that outburst of un- 
womanliness died down before the spell 
of her sweet and holy presence, and 
presently she opened the doors, and ad- 
mitted the warders. 

Biit good salt will be pungent. It has 
a savor about it which bites and stings 
whenever it comes in contact with an 
open wound. If you are holy, just, and 
faithful with a true man, he will evince 
no feeling of annoyance ; but if with a 
vicious man, he will splutter, make a wry 
face, and show violence of hand or foot. 
Christ was salt to the Pharisees, and 
they crucified him. Joseph was salt to 
his brethren, and they put him in the 
pit. Paul was salt to his fellow-country- 
men, and they arraigned him before the 
bar of Caesar. 



92 SAVORLESS SALT. 

But always distinguish between salt and 
acid. Acid corrodes, burns, kills. Salt 
smarts, heals, saves. Some rejoice in 
what they call plain speaking ; but they 
forget to speak the truth in love, and 
are like a physician who goes around 
with wholesome but nauseous medicine, 
and whenever he sees a mouth open 
pours some down. It is necessary to 
wash the saints' feet, but be sure you 
do not do it in scalding water. If you 
have to tell men that they are the enemies 
of the cross of Christ, do it weeping. Let 
it be evident that you had no axe to 
grind, no selfish end to serve, no grudge 
to pay, when you rebuke others by life 
or word for things which ought not to 
pass unnoticed. 

Salt may lose its savor. Housewives 
tell us that if it be allowed to get damp, 



SAVORLESS SALT, 93 

it will lose all taste of salt, and become 
quite useless. So we may lose all power 
of arresting sin. Yonder is a man who 
once stood high in the opinion of the 
church and the world; but he committed 
one act of inconsistency, and that has 
sealed his lips. For him to check others 
is like Satan rebuking sin. They turn 
and say, Take the beam out of thine own 
eye before attempting to take the mote 
from ours. Here is another, who has 
no power to rebuke, because he is con- 
scious of some secret sin, which pro- 
duces indecision in his manner. In 
another case it is as when Lot remon- 
strated with the men of Sodom, and 
urged his children to escape. He is 
tarred too deeply with the same brush 
for them to heed. They ridicule him 
as a childish dotard. 



94 SAVORLESS SALT. 

You cannot salt salt. You may salt 
beef and mutton and pork, and a hun- 
dred other substances, but you cannot 
salt salt. If it has lost its savor it is 
thenceforward good for nothing; but is 
cast out on the street, and trodden un- 
der foot of men. As long as a man has 
never passed under the influence of 
Christianity you may hope for him ; but 
when he has gone into it, and through 
it, and come out on the other side un- 
saved, there is little to hope for. He is 
fit neither for the land, nor yet for the 
dunghill. He is cast out as almost 
hopeless, so far as human judgment 
goes, though with God there are limit- 
less possibilities. 

Let us beware of such a fate, and live 
daily such straight, strong, pure, noble 
lives that evil may be abashed in our 



SAVORLESS SALT, 95 

presence *and slink away, and that an ar- 
rest may be put on the plague that walk- 
eth in darkness, and the pestilence that 
wasteth at noonday. And whatever you 
do, keep your savor. 



VIII 



OUR HO LI DA YS. 



VIIL 



OUR HOLIDAYS. 



We need to have a pause in the rush 
of our Ufe, whether by the seaside, on 
the moor, or in the green nook of the 
country. As nature needs the repose of 
winter after the exhaustion of her au- 
tumn produce to recuperate herself for 
the coming spring, so do we need sea- 
sons in which our intellectual and physi- 
cal vigor, to say nothing of the spirit- 
ual, maybe reinvigorated and renewed. 
Hence the need for summer holidays. 
There are certain directions, however, 
which we should bear in mind, if we 
99 



loo OUR HOLIDAYS, 

would make the most of our annual va- 
cation, which has come to be part of the 
yearly programme of most people. 

Be careful with whom you traveL It 
is certainly remarkable how amiable 
people, for the most part, are when they 
are away from home ; that is, if they 
have got their corner seat, are quite sure 
that their luggage is safe, and have got 
the first place for being served at the 
dining-table. These conditions being 
granted, it would seem as if the mo- 
ment people leave their houses they 
put off all trace of peevishness and irri- 
tation, and array themselves in the 
brightest and pleasantest moods. The 
little child who asked his father, when 
going through a cemetery, where all the 
bad people were buried, might well ask 
where all the ill-tempered people take 



OUR HOLIDAYS. loi 

their holiday. It has been observed 
that if you meet a party for the ascent 
of Snowdon, for a drive on a coach 
through the Highlands, or for a picnic 
arranged from a " Hydro,'' you will con- 
gratulate yourself on having discovered 
the most amiable of mortals. 

But if you are planning to spend all 
the time with another or others in the 
same party, to share with them the jolts 
and mishaps, the ups and downs, w^hich 
are incident to journeyings at home and 
abroad, you should be very careful wliom 
you select. One who looks on the 
bright side of things, who is hopeful 
when the morning opens with mist or a 
downpour of rain, who can laugh glee- 
fully over a misadventure, and enjoy 
contentedly the substitution of ship bis- 
cuits for ham sandwiches in the lun- 



I02 OUR HOLIDAYS. 

cheon-baskets, with such like mishaps ; 
one who is capable of reverence amid 
the sublimities of nature, and who will 
not speak of the roseate hues of morn- 
ing, or snow with evening pink, as " aw- 
fully jolly -, '' one who is capable of 
being quiet and hushed ; one who, after 
the most gleeful froliC; can turn naturally 
to thoughts of God, — give me such a 
companion for my summer holidays. 

Be careful to take a good book with you. 
There are many books which we cannot 
read in the rush of daily life. It is well 
to put one of these in the trunk; not, of 
course, a deep theological treatise, or 
Balfour's suggested basis for religious 
faith, or a manual of social and political 
economy, however closely it bears on the 
problems of the day. Apart from these 
there are books, interesting and sugges- 



J 



OUR HOLIDAYS, 1 03 

live, stimulating thought and quickening 
imagination, which we can read without 
fatigue, and to have read which will 
have made the holiday memorable. 
There are, for instance, books on nat- 
ural investigation, works of history, bi- 
ographies, the highest class of stories. 
These do not tax the mind unduly, while 
they give it that delicious sense of exer- 
cise which turns the current of the 
thought into new channels, and leaves a 
permanent possession of information and 
interest. 

Be careful io 1hi?ik about other people. 
I am beginning to see that the people 
who are always making for the best seats 
do not on the whole fare better than 
those who wait their time. In any case, 
the schemmg and pushing, the rushing 
and dashing, the fever and excitement. 



I04 OUR HOLIDAYS. 

the uncomfortable sense of having acted 
selfishly, must deprive selfish folks of 
the power of tranquil enjoyment. To 
think about other people is to do the 
best for yourself. Perhaps if you look 
after the luggage of that nervous travel- 
ler, you may find your own in the van , 
if you give up your comfortable corner 
for that little child to go to sleep in, it 
is as likely as not that the angels who 
watch it will contrive to put you into a 
sound slumber; if you will see to others 
getting refreshment, you will probably 
think less of your own hunger and fa- 
tigue, and there will be your share of 
the twelve baskets full of fragments. 
It is remarkable how often a kindness 
done to a stranger will open his heart, 
secure you a friend who will show you 
interesting views of the country through 



OUR HOLIDAYS. 1 05 

which you are passing, and which you 
must otherwise have missed. 

Be polite and coiirteoics to the servants 
and natives. I have seen disgraceful 
things. I remember a Saturday night 
in Norway, where the people of a quiet 
inn were preparing decorously for the 
succeeding day, that a rowdy party of 
young Englishmen came in and de- 
manded drink, behaved rudely to the 
modest servant-girls, shouted boister- 
ously to each other, and turned the 
place into a bear-garden. With what 
little humanity do many tourists treat 
the tired servants of the hotels or inn ! 
How vulgarly they speak to the people 
they meet on the roads, discussing their 
manners, and commenting on their ways ! 
What a conception must be given of the 
average life of English people ! more 



lo6 OUR HOLIDAYS. 

fond of a good dinner than of a fine 
view, inclined to wrangle over their 
bills, imperious in their demands, cer- 
tain that money will secure them a right 
of entrance anywhere. On the other 
hand, kind words and little courtesies 
cost nothing, but, like oil, ease the 
axles. 

Be specially careful that the summer 
holiday should be a time of spiritual re- 
freshme?it, A Christian man confided 
to me the other day his regret that he 
generally came home from his summer 
vacation worse spiritually than he 
started; and that it took him several 
weeks to regain the old position. This 
arises partly from the occupation of our 
mind with the outward, with the fresh 
scenes and people ; and thus our energy 
is diverted from the interior and eternal. 



OUR HOLIDAYS, 1 07 

Then our habits of private and domestic 
prayer are liable to be broken in upon 
by the early morning start and the late, 
tired return. We are compelled to spend 
our time in the presence of others ; and 
the larger the party, the more impossible 
to get alone. Then there is the tempta- 
tion to let ourselves go into lightness of 
speech and act, partly induced by the 
exhilarating air, and partly by the flow 
of high spirits around. From all these 
causes we are liable to lose the fine tone 
of our spiritual life, and to get jaded. 

To counteract these influences we must 
get our half-hour, or hour, alone with 
God and our Bible, though we rise a 
great while before day. We should have 
our pocket Bible at hand, that we may 
turn to the Psalms or the Prophets, as 
the divine comment on nature. And it 



Io8 OUR HOLIDAYS. 

is well to be provided with some helpful 
devotional book, the reading of which 
will direct our aspirations towards God 
and heaven. 

To me the vacation is generally asso- 
ciated with reading a book or books of 
the Bible thoughtfully, trying to see 
deeper into them than before ; and for 
many years I have read the Book of 
Revelation though at that time. There 
is a special congruity between the splen- 
dor of its conceptions and the vision of 
ocean, sky, and mountain. It is well, 
when we have witnessed the dawn 6f 
some new revelation, as well as of the 
morning ; the great deep of God's judg- 
ments, as well as the ocean ; the moun- 
tains of his righteousness, as well as 
Snowdon, Cader Idris, or Mont Blanc. 



IX. 

HOW TO SPEND SUNDAY. 



IX. 

HOW TO SPEND SUNDAY. 

" A Sabbath well spent brings a week of content." 

So the old couplet runs, but the diffi- 
culty lies in how to spend Sunday well. 
Too many seem only proficient in the art 
of how not to do it. Now I feel able to 
give some advice on this matter, as the 
Sundays of my early life were the red- 
letter days of the whole week ; and as I 
look back on them, the recollection sends 
blessed thrills of joy through my heart. 
It is as though the light of those days, 
their fragrance and dew, lie still in the 
garden of my soul, where I now walk 



112 HOW TO SPEND SUNDAY. 

with the many concerns and added in- 
terests of manhood. 

The art of making Sunday a happy 
day, if art there was, on the part of my 
parents, lay in their sharing its hours 
with the whole family. There was no 
exclusiveness, no withdrawing from the 
general life for selfish purposes, no sign 
that the children were a bother, to be 
got out of the way as expeditiously and 
for as long a period as possible. This 
is where so many families go wrong. The 
children are sent off to the nursery to 
spend the time with servants, who may 
have little interest in them or religion, 
or dismissed to the Sunday-school, that 
the parents may have unbroken leisure 
for sleep or pleasure. It is the only day 
in the week I can get for myself, says 
the father. It is the only day in the 



HOW TO SPEND SUNDAY, 1 13 

week that I can have my husband to 
myself, says the mother. It is the only 
opportunity we have of seeing our friends, 
say both. And so the children are left 
to their own devices ; and on those Sun- 
day afternoons, however unconsciously, 
the seeds of bitter harvests are sown. 
Directly self comes into the first place 
in the home-life, we begin to prepare for 
ourselves almost interminable pains in 
after years. The path of safety and true 
happiness is in seeking the well-being of 
those around, from the smallest babe to 
the most unkempt servant who has come 
under the shelter of our roof. 

A well-spent Sunday must not begin 
with self-indulgent lying in bed. Of 
course breakfast may be a little later, 
and the very essence of a happy Sunday 
lies in everything being different from 



114 HOW TO SPEND SUNDAY. 

every other day of the week ; but when 
the hour has been fixed, it should be kept. 
It makes such a difference when the 
father, mother, and children are all to 
time, and can begin breakfast together. 
May I not here put in a strong plea for 
family prayers on this, if on no other, 
day of the week ? Where the father is 
absent on business, as a commercial, or 
before breakfast, as a mechanic, it is not 
possible for the whole family to gather 
at the family altar ; and there is the 
more reason why, on Sunday morning, 
the father should take his true position 
as head and priest of his house gathered 
before God. Why should not each child 
say a text, mother and father and servant 
doing the same ? In one family in Edin- 
burgh, where I love to be, the father, 
a professor in the University, reads his 



NOW TO SPEND SUNDAY. II5 

verse in the selected chapter, then each 
of the children, and the baby-boy on his 
knee repeats his after his father, and 
finally each of the servants, down to the 
last boy who has come in to black boots, 
or to the Scotch sewing-lassie wdth her 
broad accent. But how ennobling it is 
for them all to take this audible part ! 

After breakfast our mother used to 
read to us, and give us references to find 
in our Bibles. We began, away back as 
far as I can remember, with Peep of Day., 
then Line upon Liiie., Cobbin ^s Commentary, 
and so upward. In many cases I sup- 
pose the children of your families will go 
to Sunday-school, instead of this home 
Bible-class ; but where it is so, let me 
put in an earnest word in favor of the 
young people meeting their parents, when 
the school is over, and sitting beside them 



Il6 HOW TO SPEND SUNDAY, 

during the service in the house of God. 
If they sit with the Sunday-school chil- 
dren, the fidgetting around will be almost 
certain to divert their minds ; besides 
which, most churches relegate the poor 
children to the farthest and most uncom- 
fortable parts of the building, — a dis- 
tant gallery, with hard seats and high 
backs, — as if little bodies never wearied, 
and little minds didn't find it hard to 
strain for the preacher's far-travelled 
voice. What a reversal of matters would 
take place if the Lord were to take direc- 
tion ! I believe he would send all the 
people who occupy the best positions 
packing from their comfortable seats, 
which make them so drowsy, into the 
uncushioned gallery, and call all the 
happy children down to the best softly 
cushioned pews, where he could keep 



HOW TO SPEND SUNDAY. 1 1? 

them well in sight, and hold their quick 
eyes fixed on his all the time. 

If the father would let the boy sit next 
him, and find the places, and write the 
text out during the sermon, if he were 
too young to attend, and make a com- 
fortable place for his head if he got 
sleepy; and if the mother could take 
the little girl's hand in hers, to say noth- 
ing of passing surreptitiously a little piece 
of sugar-candy to keep her from cough- 
ing (!), I cannot but think that those Sun- 
day services would not be so great a 
weariness, but in after years w^ould be 
recalled with pleasure by the lonely trav- 
eller in the backwoods, or the shepherd 
amid the Australian wolds. 

In many cases the wife must stop at 
home and prepare the dinner, and, with 
a little management, a hot dinner need 



Il8 HOW TO SPEND SUNDAY. 

not take more time than a cold one. We 
always had a sirloin of beef and roast 
potatoes. Through a long course of 
years, without a single variation, that 
was so. Even now, when I eat sirloin 
of beef, especially the undercut, I have 
a kind of Sunday feeling. I remember 
that my father always had to turn the 
joint upside down, and that it was an 
exciting moment for us all, lest he should 
splash a drop of gravy over the clean 
cloth. If a drop did go over, my mother 
hastened, with a palliating excuse, and 
applied, salt, for what reason I have not 
the remotest idea ; but it served as a 
temporary expedient, and covered the 
mishap. These things may appear triv- 
ial, but they always were associated 
with Sunday, and that made them mem- 
orable. 



HOW TO SPEND SUNDAY, II9 

Have plenty of singing on Sunday. 
During the afternoon we read our books 
or stories, but, as half-past four arrived, 
we felt that the climax of the day had 
come. My mother was not a pianist, 
but she could just get through the tunes 
of the old Psalmist ; so she played, and 
my father sat beside her, and sapg with 
his deep bass voice, and I stood beside 
him and took the air, and my sister sang 
too. We always had, '' How sweet the 
Name," " Guide me, O thou great Jeho- 
vah " (to "Mariners"), and, very often, 
" Around the throne of God in heaven," 
in memory of a little angel sister. Why 
should not all the homes into which 
this little volume comes start half-an- 
hour's song-service each Sunday ? But 
the father and mother must themselves 
take part. 



I20 HOIV TO SPEND SUNDAY. 

Then tea ; and after tea we said a 
hymn all round ; and, as I got older, I 
was encouraged to read what I had 
written of the morning sermon. And 
so the blessed day passed to its close. 
If old enough, there was the evening 
service and supper (oh, the rapture of 
sitting up to eat a potato in its jacket, 
with a pat of butter inside, with pepper 
and salt !). Again you say, very trivial, 
and quite unworthy of occupying the 
space here, or the time of the writer, 
who, at fifty years of age, should care 
for something better. Well, reader, you 
may say what you like, but these sim- 
ple things made Sunday the day of 
days, and became the seeds which have 
yielded harvests of content and blessed- 
ness. 

It is a mistake to gad about from one 



HOW TO SPEND SUNDAY. 121 

minister to another. It begets a critical 
and captious spirit, and leads one to 
subordinate the worship of the sanctuary 
to the sermon. Find out the minister 
who, on the whole, helps you most, and 
the church which needs you most, and 
concentrate your time and thought on 
these. Never criticise the preacher be- 
fore your children, and encourage them 
to remember and repeat what they can. 
Would that preachers would contrive to 
drop a few handfuls on purpose for the 
weary little listeners, whose eyes would 
glisten if their story were to be dropped 
into the discourse ; and the parents would 
be proud to explain that ^^our minister 
always thinks of the children." 

It is very important that habits of 
reverence be inculcated in children. 

" Why do I make you boys shut your 



122 HOW TO SPEND SUNDAY. 

eyes in prayer ? " asked a young lady of 
my congregation, of her class of ragged 
boys. Instantly two or three ragged 
arms went up, and one sharp youngster 
answered, — , 

"To teach us manners, ma'am." 
Was it not exactly true ? The manners 
of the heavenly court are as exacting 
as those of the Queen's drawing-room, 
and it is well to begin early enough to 
inculcate them. Be in time at service; 
be reverent in your demeanor ; take part 
in all you can ; if you cannot sing, make 
a joyful noise ; and never allow the Bi- 
ble, or anything that belongs to God, to 
be made a subject for witticism in your 
presence. 

Sunday company is, on the whole, to 
be eschewed. But, if friends drop in, ask 
them to fall in with your usual routine ; 



MO IV TO SPEND SUNDAY. 1 23 

and with them, or in their absence, let 
the conversation be tinctured, as far 
as possible, with the spirit of the day. 
My parents never talked familiarly of 
God, but, somehow, there was a Sunday 
air about the conversation ; and certain 
subjects, such as business, or pleasure- 
seeking, or story-books, would seem in- 
congruous. But there was no restraint, 
no gloom, no Pharisaism, nothing irk- 
some and tedious. To look happy, to 
dress in our best, to sing, to talk cheer- 
fully about all that interested us, this 
was the high and happy key-note of our 
family life on this best and brightest of 
days. 

Once more I crave indulgence if I 
have been too personal in reciting these 
remembrances of the past, but my mo- 
tive has been at least innocent and trans- 



124 HOW TO SPEND SUNDAY, 

parent ; for what has been may be done 
again, and it seemed better to photo- 
graph the dear old past than to produce 
a fancy picture which might seem rather 
a dream than a possibility. 



X. 

AMUSEMENTS. 



X. 



AMUSEMENTS. 

This difficulty about amusements, 
where to go and where not to go, is not 
a new one. It agitated the Christians 
at Corinth centuries ago as it agitates 
us ; and led up to one of those questions 
which the Apostle answered in his first 
epistle. 

Dean Farrar, in his graphic style, ex- 
plains the difficulty and perplexity of 
their position. They were daily living 
in the great wicked streets, in sight and 
hearing of everything that could quench 
spiritual aspirations and kindle carnal 
desires. The gay, common life pressed 
127 



1 28 AMUSEMENTS, 

on them so closely, the splendid vision 
of Christ's advent seemed so far away, 
might they not mingle with the heathen 
festivals, join in the gay processions, 
watch the dancing-girls, or take part in 
the fun and frolic of the voluptuous city ? 
Were they to live always on the heavenly 
manna, and never taste the onion, leek, 
and garlic of Egypt ? Were they never 
again to drink of the foaming cup of 
earthly pleasure, and mingle in the 
dance, the feast, the pantomimic show ? 

In answer to these difficulties, the 
Apostle laid down two principles, which 
contain between them the very light we 
need to enable us to pick our pathway 
through the world, to teach us how to 
act with regard to the thorny question 
of amusements. 

" All things are lawful for me, but not 



AMUSEMENTS. 1 29 

all things are expedient: all things are 
lawful for me, but I will not he brought 
under the power of any '' (i Cor. vi. 12). 

^^AU things are lawful, but all things 
are not expedient ; all things are law- 
ful, but all things edify not. Let no ma7i 
seek his own., but each his neighbor's good'' 
(i Cor. X. 23, 24). 

We must have recreation, times when 
jaded nerves recuperate themselves, and 
tired brains turn from their absorbing 
thoughts to lighter themes. We shall 
perform the serious work of life more 
successfully if we have seasons of res- 
pite. We shall breast the Hill Diffi- 
culty more energetically after seasons of 
rest in the Arbor of Ease. Our many- 
stringed nature craves for seasons when 
laughter, song, and enjoyment may take 
the harp of life and sweep its lighter 



130 AMUSEMENTS. 

chords. And surely Nature's gayer 
moods, when Spring scatters her flowers, 
or Summer is ripening the year's pro- 
duce, suggests, as Milton tells us in his 
immortal L' Allegro^ the relaxation of the 
severer strain of business toil. Little 
children, with their ringing laughter, 
their keen appreciation of mirth and 
frolic, their demand for good times, 
arouse us from our pensive melancholy 
and laborious toils, quickening our 
pulses, awakening our laughter, and 
giving us an excuse, which we are not 
loth to snatch, for casting aside the 
serious business of life, and taking a 
brief spell of pleasure. Then the per- 
petual question arises. How far is all 
this lawful and expedient.^ what should 
be our attitude as Christians to amuse- 
ment ? There are several principles to 



AMUSEMENTS, 1 3 1 

guide us, but the iiltimate decision must 
ever remain with the individual ; and it 
is by our action on the debatable ground 
of twilight, between the clearly defined 
territories of absolute light or darkness, 
that the most of us are made or marred. 
First : We must 7iot be enslaved by any 
form of pleasure. The Apostle vowed 
that he would not be brought under the 
power of anything, however lawful or in- 
nocent it might be in itself. It is mar- 
vellous how easy it is to become enslaved 
to forms of pleasure-taking which in 
themselves are perfectly harmless and 
natural. A man may be so intoxicated 
with golf or cricket, a woman so fasci- 
nated with lawn-tennis or bicycling, that 
they are spoiled for all the practical bus- 
iness of life ; and at the call of their 
favorite pastime, will at any moment 



132 AMUSEMENTS. 

renounce the most urgent and press- 
ing engagements. It seems as if they 
can think, dream, and plan for nothing 
else. 

When this is the case, whether the 
form of amusement be one of those 
healthy out-of-door pursuits already 
named, or the more hurtful absorption 
in the theatre, the ball, or the music- 
hall ; when what should be only the 
means to an end becomes an end in it- 
self ; when we feel our best energies 
withdrawn from the serious demands of 
life, and dissipated in its flotsam and 
jetsam ; when our soul is engrossed by 
the handling of a bat, the striking of a 
ball, the swiftness of a machine, — it is 
time to pull up and consider which way 
we are drifting. Surely life was given 
for higher purposes than these, and if it 



AMUSEMENTS. 133 

be said that all such pastimes react on 
the health and agility of the body, still 
we must reply, that at the best the body 
is only the organ and instrument of the 
soul, and that it must be kept under 
and made subservient to those lofty pur- 
poses which the soul conceives in its 
secret place and executes in life's arena. 

Next: We must have a7i eye to others. 
There are forms of amusement which 
we cannot indulge in without helping to 
destroy the souls of others. They not 
only do not build up, but they destroy 
the work of God. We have no right to 
jeopardize the eternal interests of those 
who copy our example or who minister 
to our enjoyment. 

Paul says that, so far as he was con- 
cerned, he felt at liberty to accept an in- 
vitation to a meal in the precincts of an 



134 AMUSEMENTS. 

idol-temple ; but that he would not go 
lest the weak conscience of some fellow 
Christian should be defiled. Our atti- 
tude towards certain places of amuse- 
ment and pastimes should be determined 
by our considering whether we would 
wish those who take their cue from our 
example to follow us thither. What 
effect will my conduct have on my chil- 
dren, my young brothers and sisters, the 
scholars in my Sunday-school class, and 
others who are not as strong as I am 
to resist the pernicious influences that 
are associated with this special form of 
amusement.^ Let me remember that 
young life is behind me, and though, as 
an experienced mountaineer, I might 
take the more precipitous route, for their 
sake I must follow the safe path. 

Besides, we must consider whether the 



AMUSEMENTS. 135 

effect of some system that gives us pleas- 
ure may not be in the highest degree 
deleterious in its effect on those who 
minister to our laughter or love of spec- 
tacular display. Have we any right, for 
our pleasure, to hold out baits of money 
to young girls or children or others, to 
jeopardize body and soul, and spend 
their days on the edge of the precipice ? 
"All things edify not," said the Apostle, 
and we must seek not only our own but 
another's weal. 

On the whole, simple and ftatural pleas- 
ures ai^e the best. The skate over the 
frozen pond, rather than the dance in 
the over-heated ball-room ; the family 
party, with its olden games, rather than 
the scenic representation of music-hall 
or theatre ; the real rather than the arti- 
ficial, the day rather than midnight, the 



136 AMUSEMENTS. 

dear ones of the home rather than the 
society of strangers. Let every one have 
a hobby ; let every one become profi- 
cient in some branch of natural science 
or history ; let every one do something 
well, be it to handle the oar or alpen- 
stock, to use the camera, glide over the 
ringing ice, or climb the beetling crag. 
Let this man collect geological speci- 
mens, and that flowers or ferns, and that 
curiosities from various countries and 
people. But let there be some control- 
ling interest, which shall give occupation 
in the summer ramble, or the snatch of 
foreign travel, and shall afford amuse- 
ment in recollection, arrangement, and 
comparison, when the long winter even- 
ings would hang heavily on hand. 

Whatever does not leave a wry taste 
in our mouth, nor causes a feeling of 



AMUSEMENTS. 137 

compunction and regret as we review it, 
nor exerts a baleful effect on those who 
minister to our enjoyment, nor unfits us 
for prayer and communion with God, 
nor so dazzles and blinds us that we can 
find no pleasure in the simple delights 
of home and natural beauty ; whatever 
is wholesome and health-giving ; what- 
ever is capable of being presented to 
God in prayer as the object of his bless- 
ing ; whatever is in harmony with the 
tender, holy, unselfish, and blessed na- 
ture of Jesus, — is an amusement which 
we may gladly avail ourselves of ; and 
it shall be to us as the whetting of the 
scythe amid the mower's toils, and as 
the mending of the nets torn by the 
midnight fishing-cruise. 



XL 

THE USE OF THE SENSES. 



XL 

THE USE OF THE SENSES. 

Our senses give warning signals when 
danger is near. This is perhaps their 
secondary use, but it is the most vital. 
The eye, ear, nose, the senses of taste 
and touch, are the channels through 
which the most exquisite pleasures are 
wafted to us — rapturous glimpses of 
natural beauty, sweet sounds, fragrant 
scents, delicious viands, and soft con- 
tacts ; but they are also the avenues 
along which ride post-haste the couriers, 
warning of the approach of assassins 
that menace and imperil life. For the 
141 



142 THE USE OF THE SENSES, 

most part what is inimical to health is 
odious and distasteful to our senses, and 
the quicker these become the more likely 
we are to preserve the springs of life 
from being poisoned and vitiated. 

We are told in more than one Scrip- 
ture, and notably in Heb. v. 14, that 
there are spiritual counterparts to our 
senses, and that we should exercise these 
to discern good and evil. It is highly 
important to do so ; for as attention to 
the warning of the physical senses will 
preserve the health of our body, so atten- 
tion to the warnings of our inner senses 
will forewarn and forearm against the in- 
fluences that are hostile to spiritual life. 

Take the Ear of the SouL In the case 
of the savage the ear is trained to such 
precision as to detect the footfall of a 
stranger at an immense distance ; and 



THE USE OP THE SENSES. 143 

in the case of the trained musician to 
discriminate between the most delicate 
shades of sound. Indeed, it would be 
impossible to train a singer for a place 
in the front rank of the profession whose 
ear was not extremely delicate and sen- 
sitive ; and natural gifts in this direction 
may be still further trained to almost any 
degree of nicety. If the ear is not sen- 
sitive to the slightest discord, the voice 
can never be modulated to the finest 
harmonies. 

And is there anything more necessary 
than to have the inner ear trained and 
exercised by contact with the Divine 
notes of an infinite charity ! You may 
hear people talking most discordantly 
with this, criticising their neighbors, dis- 
cussing their friends, uttering sharp and 
unkind judgments, all of which would be 



144 THE USE OF THE SENSES. 

impossible if their ears had only been 
educated to detect the discords of their 
speech. But they talk on for years in 
utter oblivion of their false and disso- 
nant notes. Amid so much discordance 
let us constantly seek for a pure ear, 
which will tell us in a moment when we 
have spoken a single word that is incon- 
sistent with the perfect harmonies of the 
nature of God, which is love. 

The Eye of the Soul. The eye detects 
the approach of danger, and, in the case 
of a savage, can do so in symptoms 
which are altogether meaningless to the 
ordinary vision. That bent blade of 
grass, that snapt twig, that almost im- 
perceptible trail ! Away on the moun- 
tain side the trained observer can see 
masses of troops where another finds 
only the shadows of passing clouds. 



THE USE OF THE SENSES. 145 

But the training of the eye of the soul 
is even more necessary, because it can 
anticipate the advent of temptation. It 
is bad when we have no warning of the 
stealthy approach of our worst adversary, 
till like a midnight assassin he has broken 
into the house of our life. Well is it 
when we can descry the gathering storm 
when it is still on the horizon, so as to 
reef our sails in time ajid be prepared 
for the squall ; when we can detect the 
pitfall before we come to it ; and see the 
brigand gang lying in wait before we 
reach the dark thicket ; and anticipate 
complications and perplexities before we 
are amid them. By that clear prescience 
which is not the least of God's gifts we 
are the more likely to pass unscathed 
through life's ordeal because more able to 
appeal beforehand to Christ for succor. 



146 THE USE OF THE SENSES. 

The Scent of the SouL It is good to 
have a keen sense of smell ; it will save 
us from many a noisome pestilence aris- 
ing from the drain, or brooding in the 
plague-laden air. If it were not for this 
invaluable gift, we might linger and 
sleep amid deadly gases, unconscious of 
the peril we w^re incurring. It is well to 
have this sense exercised. I remember 
once, after a voyage across the Atlantic, 
visiting friends, who were spending 
their summer holidays within a mile of 
a sewage farm, the near neighborhood 
of which was not noticeable to them, 
but to which the pure ozone of the ocean 
had made me extremely sensitive. 

If our soul's sense of smell were more 
keen, we should be quicker to perceive 
when there was impurity in the speech or 
behavior of our companions, and should 



THE USE OP THE SENSES. 147 

turn from them with disgust. The pure 
lad would blush and hasten from the way 
of the ungodly and the seat of the scorn- 
ful. The highly spiritual and nobly tem- 
pered woman would take no pleasure in 
the double allusions of the music-hall, or 
the highly spiced conversation of chil- 
dren of fashion. The pure in heart 
would rush from the obscenity and oaths 
with which too much of the talk of so- 
called gentlemen is interlarded, as if 
they had suddenly become aware of the 
presence of an open sewer. 

The Taste of the Soul, The sense of 
taste sits as a sentinel at the entrance 
of the alimentary canal to prevent hurt- 
ful and deleterious substances from en- 
tering. How often has our first bite of 
some fruit or food led us to eject it from 
our mouth with disgust, thereby saving 



14^ THE USE OF THE SENSES. 

our life ! The rule is not invariable. 
There are substances which are most 
distasteful, but are nevertheless good as 
medicines, and palatable things are 
sometimes harmful to a degree ; still, as 
a general rule, the palate may be trusted. 
Now, how much evil might we be 
saved from, if only the taste of the soul 
were more highly educated in respect to 
the books which come into our hands. 
How often do young and inexperienced 
minds devour from beginning to end 
books, novels, treatises, which are highly 
inimical to their soul-life. If only they 
knew how to distinguish between good 
and evil, if only they could detect the 
subtle poison that had been instilled into 
those pages from the fangs of the great 
serpent, if only they were on the alert to 
reject that which blasts and blights the 



THE USE OF THE SENSES. 149 

delicate growth of the better life, — how 
much suffering and consumption would 
be averted! 

The SouVs Sense of Touch, The touch 
may be brought to an amazing degree of 
perfection, and become so sensitive that 
it can distinguish between the slightest 
variations in fabric or temperature. In 
members of the feline tribe — the cat or 
tiger — this sense is developed to its 
fullest perfection. But in man also it 
may become extremely acute. 

Would that we might have that same 
sensitiveness to right and wrong, that 
we might with a touch be able to discern 
the one from the other, and have grace 
enough to accept the good and reject the 
evil. As the experienced hand can tell 
in a moment when a coin is light or not, 
so we might know whether a doctrine or 



150 THE USE OF THE SENSES. 

statement tallied with the standard of 
God's truth or fell beneath it. 

These distinctions are not to be learned 
in a moment. We may train our facul- 
ties from less to more ; by reason of use 
they may be exercised ; when the Spirit 
comes on us we shall, like our Master, 
be "quick of scent." But' it is certain 
that we cannot long preserve the fine 
temper of the soul in such a world as 
this unless we carefully attend to the 
least monitions of the Divine Spirit op- 
erating through the senses of the soul. 



XII. 

CHRISTMAS. 



XII. 



CHRISTMAS. 



Here again ! Welcome, thrice wel- 
come ! The darkest, shortest days of 
the year are an appropriate season to 
select for the Yule-log, the good cheer, 
the home-gatherings, the presents and 
gifts of young and old, which Christmas 
brings ! 

The Yule-log I How we love it ! For 
ordinary days the coal-fire is good 
enough ; but, oh, the spluttering, the 
crackling, the blue elfish flame of the 
Christmas log! We need no candle or 
gas-light, when the flame has caught it 
153 



154 CHRISTMAS. 

in its lambent arms, and creeps along its 
edges, and eats into its heart. How hard 
that knot is fighting ! What a flare that 
resinous oil makes ! How sweet the 
scent, and fitful the light which rises 
and falls and flickers ! Now is the time 
to gather round for one brief hour of 
blessed, happy home-talk, between the 
lights — the light of the short winter day 
and the artificial light that must soon be 
brought in for the evening's work. 

There should be no secrets in the fam- 
ily circle. The interests of each are those 
of all, and in the happy intercourse of the 
circle gathered round the flickering log, 
the common life gets illustrated and 
illuminated by quip and crank, by joke 
and tease, by the original saying of Ihe 
little child, and the wise counsel of the 
father. It reminds me of those old mis- 



CHRISTMAS. 155 

sals, whose stern black letter-press is ac- 
companied by the gorgeous margin, with 
faces and figures, flowers and fruits, 
dogs, monkeys, birds, and animals, friars 
and monks, kings and queens, babes and 
angels. 

Happy are the children who are born 
into large families. It is rare that an 
only child reaches its fullest develop- 
ment. There is a play, a reciprocal 
influence, a chipping-off of corners, a 
balancing, a taking-off of peculiarities, a 
taking-down of pride, in a large family, 
which are priceless. The children are 
sure to pair off in twos, who will fight 
for one another against the rest, and ex- 
change endless confidences ; but, never- 
theless, the interchange of repartee and 
badinage between each with all will go 
freely forward, and each member of the 



156 CHRISTMAS. 

family will appropriate spoils from the 
rest. Such free trade in one another's 
characteristics prospers best in the light 
of the Yule-log. 

The Good Cheer I You tell me that 
there is waste and over-eating, and ask 
me to rebuke the busy housewives with 
their market-baskets and bargains, their 
turkeys, geese, plum-puddings, and mince 
pies. Well, of course, there should be no 
extravagance ; and we have no right to 
surfeit ourselves when the poor are starv- 
ing at our doors. Before we sit down to 
our Christmas meals, we must provide 
portions for those that are without. Ma- 
terials for good dinners must be sent to 
poor families who live in our immediate 
neighborhood, or our less prosperous rel- 
atives; the charwoman that comes once 
a week, the widowed mother of the boy 



CHRISTMAS. 157 

who brings the daily paper, the family of 
the poor crossing-sweep, the respectable 
old couple that are trying to keep them- 
selves respectable and to avoid as long 
as possible the workhouse, or the strug- 
gling needlewoman whose customers will 
not pay what they owe. Do not be 
content with giving your guinea to the 
church or parish fund, but find out the 
needy and distressed, and with your own 
hand minister to their need. And then, 
with an easy conscience, you may sit 
down to your well-spread board. 

For my part, I like to see the butchers' 
shops with the prize-meat, the poulterers' 
with turkeys, geese, and chickens, hang- 
ing in rich profusion, the pastry-cook 
windows with their frosted cakes, and 
the grocers' with their dried fruits and 
candies, their teas and sugars, and all the 



15S CHRISTMAS. 

cunning enticements to mothers, sisters, 
wives, and daughters, to provide Christ- 
mas cheer. And then that great event 
in the housewife's year, the Christmas 
dinner ! I like it, not of course for the 
rich and tempting dainties that resemble 
the fruit of the forbidden tree, in being 
pleasant to the eye and good for food ; 
but because of the pleasure it gives the 
women of our homes in preparing it ! 

Such a vision of arms white with flour, 
and faces toasted by the fire, and whis- 
perings over new recipes, and mysterious 
disappearances for hours together in the 
kitchen, of peeling, mincing, chopping, 
roasting, mixing, boiling, tasting, here 
comes over me, that I can but give my- 
self up to congratulation for the oppor- 
tunity that Christmas brings. Imagine 
the chance given to so many housewives 



CHRISTMAS. 159 

for planning, scheming, arranging, pur- 
chasing, cooking, and serving, which are 
purely altruistic, of course. Free scope 
is given to so many unselfish qualities in 
the preparation of that great event of the 
year — the Christmas dinner ! 

71ie Home- Coming I The boys and 
girls have come back from boarding- 
school ; and those who w^ere fortunate 
enough not to go away to school have 
holidays. But this is not all. The eldest 
daughter, who has been absent the whole 
year in the distant town, is leaving by 
the night train, and will be here in the 
morning ; and the grow^n-up sons will 
bring their wdves, and perhaps their ba- 
bies; and the little midshipman will be 
back from the long and weary voyage. 
Oh, blessed festival of home, when the 
broken circles are formed again, and 



l6o CHRISTMAS. 

olden memories of the golden past are 
renewed. How many a life is kept sweet 
and pure amid the evil of the world, by 
the thought of the Christmas gathering, 
coming or passed ! 

How shall we gather up all the 
threads which the hours like swiftly glid- 
ing shutters weave ? Mother thinks that 
Mary looks rather over-wrought, and says 
so to the father, and they have a talk 
with her. She laughs merrily at their 
anxiety, and declares she is perfectly 
well, only tired with the Christmas rush. 
Then the father says he never saw the 
boys look so well, he is sure they have 
grown an inch, and he wants to know if 
their salaries have been raised. In the 
middle of the morning the sailor-boy 
arrives, and his mother kisses again and 
again the bronzed chubby face. In the 



CHRISTMAS. l6i 

afternoon the girls go round to see their 
girl-friends, not without a hope that 
their brothers will be at home ; and the 
lads manage to come across the play- 
mates of their boyhood, whose faces 
have been their guiding stars through 
many a mile of tossing foam. Then 
dinner, and the old stories, the well- 
worn jokes, the reminiscences of what 
this one did or that in the old days, the 
babble of voices, the compliments to 
mother's cooking, the teasing of the sis- 
ters, their scathing answers, the happy, 
happy play of life and fun, till the whole 
party from the grandparents to the 
grandchildren have caught the infection. 
Oh, blessed English homes, the heart of 
old England can never grow old or sad 
so long as Christmas comes to stir your 
smouldering embers into flame ! 



1 62 . CHRISTMAS. 

The Gifts I For weeks before, there 
have been schemings, whisperings, and 
mysterious parcels brought in under 
cloaks and secreted in safe places. 
Hints dropped and caught at ! Leading 
questions suggested ! Shops ransacked ! 
Purses emptied ! Probably each gets 
back an equivalent for what he gives ; 
and probably also a good many things 
are given which are of no kind of use. 
Still, the thought for each other is lovely. 
The endeavor to understand one an- 
other's needs is wholesome. And it is 
always more blessed to give than to re- 
ceive. What a wealth of giving has been 
elicited by that Unspeakable Gift which 
we commemorate at Christmas. 

•Let us put no stint on our gifts, lest 
the fountains of our life become frozen 
at the heart. None would become a 



CHRISTMAS. 163 

Dead Sea, always taking in, and never 
giving out. But let us give, not only to 
those who can recompense us again, but 
to such as cannot repay. 

Thus our Christmas days come and go. 
The happy party breaks up. We take 
our several ways, and settle to our pur- 
suits. But the light of the Yule-log 
flickers still in our hearts, and the love 
of the home acts as a preservative 
against the evils of the world. 

Do you know of lonely ones that have 
no Christmas circles awaiting them 1 
Find them out, and invite them to join 
your own. Let there be with you, as 
with Israel, a tender thoughtfulness for 
the stranger that is within your gates. 
And be sure that all the Christmas joy 
is tinctured with the thought and love of 
God. Let the old family Bible be opened, 



1 64 CHRISTMAS. 

and thanks be rendered to him of whom 
every family in heaven and earth is 
named. Let nothing be said or done to 
grieve his gentle and Holy Spirit. Let 
the home harmonies be keyed to those 
of heaven. And if there are the empty 
chairs, the vacant seats, the sad mem- 
ories of vanished hands and silenced 
voices, look away to that great home 
festival in the many mansions of the 
Father's house, where the severed shall 
reunite, and the circles be complete, and 
from horizon to horizon shall be only 
love and peace and joy. 



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